my morning walk with the dog around Orchard School

Maybe it's bronchitis or asthma
or my secret life as a witch
crushed beneath the weight
of stone.

I cross street after street littered with urban decay,
blue bags shredded in Sycamore trees
distressing emerging leaves.
But oh, the green, how it invades my senses!

From night, frogs fall and split the sidewalk with hope
their songs of romance swimming in water-filled holes of
depression. I went to first and second grade there.
Now nothing remains but a city block, fenced in, treeless
and flowerless,
waiting.

Unnoticed, two Buddhas pass into nothing.